


Exorcism

by LlawenGwaed



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Hurt with very little comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02, Time Agent Jack Harkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:07:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22884496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LlawenGwaed/pseuds/LlawenGwaed
Summary: Turns out, having been the go-to guy for torture is a useful skill when your lover gets possessed by an alien. Archive warning perhaps a little strong but better to be safe.Sorry guys, but if you didn't like things bleak you're probably watching the wrong show.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 55





	Exorcism

He stood in the darkness, closing his eyes, drilling down into himself to find the worst. The buried parts. The layers of himself he would deny to his team, to friends, to lovers.

Jack was not a good person. He had known this since before his time agency days, but in later years he’d tried to do good things, or at least do things for the right reason.

Now resurrecting his past self was his best hope. He could think of no other way. He’d have to pull the darkness he’d buried into action- because he could think of no other way to save Ianto Jones.

******

Around an hour after Ianto had been found unconscious in the archives it became obvious that something was very wrong.

At first he was confused, it took around ten seconds for him to answer even basic questions. Owen pulled Jack to one side to say something when Ianto started to speak in a language no one understood along with violent outbursts.

Jack had grabbed him, stopped him throwing himself into walls headfirst. Owen had tried to sedate him but nothing seemed to work. Whatever it was could override his metabolism and body chemistry.

Tosh and Gwen combed over the archive, eventually producing the offending item. A poorly stored glass phial had shattered on the floor- it hadn’t been touched since the late 70’s. Jack saw the label holding a few shards still together and “Shit.”

Ianto had gone into the archive happy. Secure. He was the perfect hosting environment for the phials resident.

The violent outbursts weren’t the creature, which was quite satisfied with its new residence. The attempts to pound his head against the wall was all Ianto, desperately trying to gain control back.

**

There were two ajoined consciousness inside Ianto. The creature growing stronger and more dominant, the human, wounded and failing. There were bursts of lucidness from Ianto that became less frequent as the hours passed. He tried to fight it, begging for help which they couldn’t give. His moments of clarity reduced, and were getting shorter.

“I can’t fight it Jack- how do I fight something that’s in my head?”

“You keep going. You need to keep pushing it back.”

“Jack- I’m not going to win, am I?” His voice cracked.

“You’re buying us time.”

“For what?” He seemed to drift for a moment before turning back to Jack. “Don’t let it take me over.”

“It won’t come to that.”

“Promise me.” He was terrified, but insistent on holding it together.

Jack nodded, and Ianto didn’t speak again. He drifted away, unable to respond.

They were losing him. Jack had to act quickly. They couldn’t wait for a less harmful cure. 

He ordered the rest of the team out of the hub. None of them could be here for what had to happen next.

Tosh nodded her head and left quietly. Jack silently thanked her for her trust.

Gwen tried to start a conversation but Jack shut her down straight away. “I need you to go. Right now, for his sake.” She nodded. He ached for her to embrace him for a moment before leaving, but it was best she hadn’t. He needed to be severe, he couldn’t let her empathy contaminate him.

He thought for a moment about letting Owen stay, but he’d never allow what needed to happen. He wouldn’t be able to stand by and let Jack do this.

He’d be a Doctor about it. Owen would stop him. Jack would not be able to do what was needed if Owen were there, screaming for him to stop. Shouting that he was killing both the creature and Ianto.

Because Jack may have to kill them both, and for that reason, Owen could not stay. Jack could not risk a rogue alien consciousness with Ianto’s knowledge of Torchwood. If the alien won, and succeeded in suffocating Ianto out of his own body then Jack would have to end it. He had promised Ianto.

“What are you going to do?” Owen asked in a low voice.

“Nothing any of you should see.”

*****

Jack looked at the man chained in the cell, halfway between the side walls, restraints both holding him to left and right in the dead centre of the room. Now the creature was left straining and writhing against his bonds. It had the face of Ianto Jones, and that would be hard to work with. The face that had such peace the night before, the eyes so flourished with love- all withered away now. His eyes were cold. His face streaked with violent colours, bruised from hitting against the walls repeatedly before he was restrained.

Jack closed his eyes a moment, remembering how he looked less than 24 hours ago, dozing, contented. Before that their bodies tangled together. Ianto groaning, gasping with bodily rapture, Jack’s hands in his hair, petting, pushing him closer to joy. The whispers in the dark afterwards. Words growing fewer as sleep crept up on him. Thinking Ianto had fallen asleep in his arms last night seemed so unlikely, it was so far away now.

Jack pushed the image away, thinking of the creature violating Ianto’s body- its consciousness gripping tighter on Ianto every hour. They had to be separated, the creature drawn out, and the only way Jack could conceive of that working was by making Ianto’s body a hostile environment. Ianto’s body would have to be rendered unbearable.

He entered the cell, watching as the creature writhed, showing little interest in him than in its predicament. That was at least until he put a black bag over its head. It clawed at the air, searching out for him to retaliate. He stepped behind it and jabbed it in the back with the stun gun. It roared and squirmed against its bonds. Jack increased the level and used it again. This time it slumped forward.

He held the sinking form against him with one arm as he took Iantos wrist from one restraint and pulled it into another. There was a low moan, almost words. Quickly Jack shifted his other wrist and left his lovers body suspended from the ceiling.

Jack heard Ianto mumble again, almost voiceless. He knew it had to be Ianto, because it whispered “Please-.“

Jack had to override every instinct to hold his lover in his arms and tell him everything would be fine.

A moment later the creature roared back to life, kicking as well as it could with legs bound to the floor. 

Next Jack took out scissors, cutting away the remains of the shirt Ianto had been wearing. Then cut away the boxers at the hips.

Blind, naked and bound the creature shrieked in protest. Ianto would be dying of shame but that was all for a good cause.

Jack picked up the first bucket and drenched Ianto in cold water. He did the same with the second.

It roared, then it shivered as goosebumps rose over Ianto’s body.

Ianto hated the cold, naked and drenched his body temperature would drop rapidly. Jack liked to think the creature was starting to get the message.

Jack snapped on the gloves and opened the box he’d pulled from the prohibited part of the archive. He slid the lid open and picked up a gleaming metal rod, barely a millimetre thick but about 20 cms long. It was sharp to a fine needle point on one end, the other blunt and ending in transparent substance.

He used the stun gun and while the creature in Ianto was dazed, he seized hold of him with one arm- restraining the creature against him.

With Jack’s free arm, he passed the point over Ianto’s side, until the transparent part of the rod turned blue. Grimacing, Jack drove the point deep into his lovers flesh. A scream ripped from Ianto’s throat. It writhed, not expecting to be impaled. Jack let go and stood back, seeing a crimson line of blood running down, dripping down over Ianto’s hip.

Jack took the second rod. This time under the ribs. He concentrated for the aim, waiting for the clear to turn blue- ensuring that he wouldn’t strike vital organs or vessels. The transparency turned blue and he thrust it into the flesh.

Again, it screamed. Pulling against restraints before Ianto’s legs failed, leaving it hanging by his wrists. As its rasping breaths dissipated, Jack heard the human shudder of breath taken in pain. He closed himself off to it.

He waited, stepping back and waiting for the breathing to change. After a few minutes, he seized the rod and plunged it in to Ianto’s abdomen. It wailed and snarled, before changing tactic. It relaxed its grip on Ianto’s mind, just enough to let Jack hear his lovers hurt.

“Jack-“ Ianto’s voice was laboured, struggling for breath in such agony. “Jack, please.”

He’d waited for that. Knowing the creature would try an appeal to him, to get him to stop. Jack pulled the bleeding, pain wracked body of his lover against him, pulling the hood above his mouth.

“Please,” he was crying. Most would be sobbing and screaming at this stage. Jack was quietly impressed. “I can’t- I can’t stand it.”

Jack pressed his lips to Ianto’s, drawing himself up before he could speak. Violence was one thing.

Now he had to really hurt him.

“I don’t care.” Jack whispered, his voice cold and passionless. “I told you if you majorly screwed up again there would be consequences.”

Ianto was almost hyperventilating, quaking with dread.

“You should ask yourself, if I cared, surely I’d have found a better way than this?” Jack hissed as the fourth rod slammed into his side- there was a very human scream.

Jack let go and picked up the fifth rod. He moved quicker, his movement not so nuanced but paced with an edge of anger.

“You always wanted to know, who I was before now. This is your answer.” He said as his fingers gripped the metal. He pushed the sixth into his pocket and turned on his heel.

“Turns out, what we do and hurting people for a living isn’t all that different.” He grabbed Ianto and rammed the fifth rod in. Ianto gasped for air, feeling his head get light. He feels Jack touch his face. Not caressing, caring- but seizing his jaw.

“Didn’t you wonder, why I was interested in you? I only like people I can imagine myself hurting.”

Jacks pushed his face away, dismissive. Fingers wind their way to his abdomen again. “You don’t know how long I’ve thought about this.”

He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low growl. “I didn’t just work out how to please you, I learned how to really hurt you as well.”

Ianto was trembling. He juddered as Jack’s arms slid around him. “I know all your weak spots. I know what you can’t stand, and what you fear the most. I know how to make you beg for mercy-“

He jarred the final rod in. “And the answer will be no.” Jack stepped away, watching as Ianto spasmed with pain. He reached into his back pocket.

Ianto’s body hung there, he wailed, physically sullied and emotionally wounded. Everything he had opened up to Jack had been used against him.

Jack paused. Looking for a few moments. Calculating how far to take this. He held a control module in his hands. Impaling was only the start.

How much of this could he take? For how long? He was young and healthy, but he was also being put under strain by the alien consciousness inside him.

In normal circumstances, he’d go slowly. Breaking his victim through various pain barriers over a matter of hours. But this wasn’t about making him talk or state sponsored revenge. This was a brutal but hopefully life-saving procedure. Kill or cure.

He steeled himself, then pushed the control to the highest level and activated it. He fought his instinct to turn away.

Screaming.

No holds barred. No attempt at bravery or begging. Just cold, primal reaction. Nothing to defend with, no one to call for help. This was absolute animalistic terror from pain.

Screaming as every nerve ending turned to white hot agony. Pain from within consuming every fibre. His whole body wishing for death. Dying was preferable to continuing. He didn’t even want to gasp for air as this would keep him alive and in pain.

Screaming filled Jacks ears. Jack gripped the control module with white knuckles. Waiting, seeing that this still wasn’t enough as the creature didn’t separate. Counting the seconds, praying that Ianto was strong enough to endure without the strain killing him.

He deactivated and the screaming subsided. Once wasn’t going to be enough.

Ianto was a mess. He was sobbing. Uncontrollably. He wasn’t just caught at the point of thinking that Jack might kill him- he was actively wishing for it. He couldn’t talk. He didn’t have the ability to form words any more.

Standing facing him, Jack looked at his lovers tortured body. The creature had chosen well, a body that would stand up to levels of pain others could not- not through physicality but sheer force of will. Surely though, he couldn’t have much more. He needed to push him over the edge.

Jack raised his hand, hesitated, then slapped Ianto hard in the face. “Stop it.” He intoned angrily. He hit him again. “Grow up.” A third time. “Take it like a man.” 

He stepped back and reactivated the control module as Ianto gasped for breath between sobs.

His body spasmed. Lungs pushing out a final, uninhibited roar of pure horror. Pain, despair, betrayal. Then he wilted, hung limp and lifeless. Jack reached forward and touched his neck. A thready pulse quivered. He pulled the black bag from his head.

Jack started to speak- low and intense. And not to Ianto. “I know you can hear me, and I have a very simple message. This stops- when- you- leave.”

Eyes opened. Ianto’s eyes, but not his soul behind them. “You don’t get to stay in there.”

Jack continued. “You can exit that body and get into the trap- or stay and die.” It raised Ianto’s head, tilting to the side as it listened. Jack started to walk around the hanging body in the centre of the cell.

“You can stop trying to read his mind to see if I’m bluffing. I’ve just shattered everything he thinks he knows about me.”

He stepped back in front and faced the creature in his lover’s body. “You should know this- I’ll kill him before I let you have him.”

“Don’t believe me?” Jack held the control module, his finger ready to activate. He started to put pressure on it- his eyes pricked with tears. He had to stay strong for Ianto. He had to not relent, even if it cost Ianto his life. His finger started to press to reactivate-

A green light separated from Ianto’s body and hung there for a moment like a mist, before being absorbed into the trap. It snapped shut and started to hum.

A gasping, choking noise came from Ianto, Jack lunged towards him, uncuffing him quickly and laying him on the floor. “Breathe, deep breaths, deep as you can.”

Jack seized at the first rod and pulled it out in a slick single motion, he ignored Ianto’s gasps as he checked the wound had fused when he removed the rod before grabbing at the next one. Ianto’s head lolled to one side, looking at the trap. It wasn’t a nightmare or delusion. This had happened.

Jack pulled the last rod, then reached for a blanket. He pulled Ianto into his arms. He was cold and withdrawn, waning from consciousness again with pain and shock.

The pain had been unimaginable, coursing through him and seemingly endless. Jack had inflicted such pain on him- Jack who had been the only person Ianto had felt safe with in a long time.

Ianto lashed out, pushing against Jacks arms, trying to recoil from him- hurt and betrayed physically and mentally. He struggled against him, wanting to push him away-but he was so weakened that Jack held onto him tighter.

“No-no. It’s ok.” Jack wasn’t letting go. His arms locked around him.

“I’ve got you, it’s over now.” Ianto felt himself sink slightly, he couldn’t fight the instinct to huddle against Jack. He was reeling, trying to figure out what from the torture and mind games was real and what wasn’t.

Reaching up, Jack ran his hands through Ianto’s hair. He was back in his arms, as they were last night. “It’s alright- I’ve got you.”

Cradled against Jack, Ianto’s shaking hand gripped at his shirt. “Why? Why didn’t you find another way?”

“There wasn’t time. I’m sorry.” He kissed Ianto on the temple, trying to not get overwhelmed. “I’m so sorry.”

“This- this was the best you could do for me?”

Ianto started to build walls in his mind. Pushing and trying to bury how he felt, trying to stamp out his feelings. He already felt shamed and was desperate to hold onto his final threads of dignity.

“Don’t. Don’t do that.” Jack was saying. The voice that had been so cold, so merciless was full of concern and affection.

Ianto’s instincts, to hide, to protect himself were taking over. He wanted to get clean and warm. To suppress what had just happened. If he pushed it down he could start to work out how he could forgive Jack for this. But he needed to be away from him.

“Listen to me-“Jack was saying. “You just had something try to fuse itself into your mind. You have to confront it, to let go of it. If you bury this- you could really damage yourself.”

Jack was stroking his face, earnest, concerned. “Ianto- let it go. Scream. Shout. Do what you need to. I’ve got you.”

He took a few breaths. Tears falling. Breathing faster and faster. He reached for Jack and pulled him into a full embrace. “You knew-,“ he breathed, “You knew how and where to hurt me, you know what I’m afraid of and you used it.”

“I’m sorry-“ said Jack, gripping tighter.

“Fuck your apology. And fuck you.” He wept, howling into Jacks shoulder, bawling the ordeal out as Jack held onto him.


End file.
